The
young mother set her foot on the path of life. "Is this the long way?" she
asked.

The guide said, "Yes, and the way is hard. You will be old before you reach
the end of it. But the end will be better than the beginning."

But the young mother was happy, and she could not believe that anything
could be better than these years.

So she played with her children, gathered flowers for them along the way,
and bathed them in the clear streams. As the sun shone on them, the young
mother cried, "Nothing could ever be lovelier than this."

Then the night came ... and the storm ... and the path became dark. The
children shook with fear and cold. The mother drew them close to her and
covered them with her mantle.

The children said, "Mother, we are not afraid, for you are near. No harm can
come to us."

Then morning came. There was a hill ahead, and the mother and her children
climbed it and grew weary. She would frequently tell the children, "Keep
your patience because we are almost there."

So the children continued to climb. When they reached the top, they said,
"Mother, we would not have done it without you."

When the mother laid down at night, she looked up at the stars and thought,
"This is a better day than the last, for my children have learned fortitude
in the face of hardness. Yesterday I gave them courage. Today I have given
them strength."

The next day, strange clouds appeared which darkened the earth ... clouds of
war, hate, and evil. As the children groped and stumbled, the mother said,
"Look up! Lift your eyes to the light!"

The children looked. They saw above the clouds, an everlasting glory, and it
guided them beyond the darkness.

That night, the mother said, " This is the best day of all, for I have shown
my children God."

The days went on, and the weeks, and the months, and the years. The mother
grew old and she was little and bent over. But her children were tall and
strong, and walked with courage.

When the way was rough, they lifted her, for she was as light as a feather.
At last they came to the top of a hill. They could see a shining road with a
golden gate that opened wide.

The mother said, "I have reached the end of my journey. I now know that the
end is better than the beginning, for my children can walk alone, and their
children after them."

The children said, "You will always walk with us, Mother, even when you have
gone through the gates.

They stood and watched her as she went on alone. The gates closed after her.
The children said, "We cannot see her, but she is still with us. A mother
like ours is more than a memory. She is a living presence."

Our mother is always with us. She's the whisper of the leaves as we walk
down the street. She's the smell of bleach in our freshly laundered socks.
She's the cool hand on our brow when we're not feeling well.